Following a 2016 appeal to Stratford's official plan amendment 21 by the former Cooper Site landowner Lawrence Ryan, a Local Planning Appeal Tribunal recently approved a modified version of the plan amendment authorizing the establishment of the Grand Trunk anchor district designation for the property.

City staff are lauding a recent decision by the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal as a significant step forward in Stratford’s efforts to redevelop the Cooper Site property into a community hub.

Following the tribunal’s March 25 decision regarding an appeal of a section dealing with the Cooper Site property in Stratford’s 2016 official plan amendment by former owner Lawrence Ryan, city CAO Rob Horne announced at Monday’s city council meeting the city would be seeking costs from Ryan.

“This decision of the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal is significant. It now puts the official plan designation for the Grand Trunk property … clearly in place. It is a very significant decision that was issued and that dismissed the appeal, and that official plan designation is now in full force and effect. We have advised our legal counsel to seek costs against the appellant, so it’s another important part in support of the redevelopment of this property,” Horne said.

Stratford’s official plan amendment 21 originally listed the Cooper Site – expropriated by the city in 2009 – as a major institutional use focus area with goals, objectives and permitted uses intended to both preserve the property’s heritage value as home to a former Grand Trunk Railway repair shop while complementing the role, character and identity of Stratford’s downtown core.

According to Ryan, the focus of part of his appeal was on the permitted uses listed for the property in the original official plan amendment, which was revised by the city with the tribunal’s approval several times since Ryan first launched his appeal in late 2016.

“An important issue … was ensuring that section 4.11 did not in any way contradict the finding by the tribunal in the expropriation compensation claim that the special use for the expropriated lands was the (University of Waterloo) campus,” Ryan wrote in an email to the Beacon Herald Wednesday afternoon. “The original/appeal(ed) section 4.11 included uses for the expropriated lands that did contradict this earlier finding by the tribunal. (The city later) removed these other uses.”

Prior to the city’s changes, the official plan amendment listed public, institutional, public service, education, recreational, park, public transportation and government as permitted uses, as well as several accessory uses such as small-scale retail and commercial, and parking. All of these proposed uses were removed by the city. In their place, the city wrote “the subject lands will be subject to the policies of the downtown core designation in the official plan.”

Ryan also appealed the wording under the commemoration and preservation subsection in the original version of the official plan amendment, which stated, “The city is in the process of determining the future of the existing structure on the Cooper Site which may include demolition, partial preservation, rehabilitation and/or commemoration.”

According to the tribunal’s decision, Ryan’s concern with the original wording in the subsection stemmed from the city’s decision to list demolition as the first option.

“(This) caused significant mistrust … due to the fact that subject lands had been recommended to be designated under the Ontario Heritage Act to city council, but city council had declined to do that. Thus, with demolition … being the first option … it may have served to heighten the concerns of the participants that the structure would be totally demolished,” the tribunal wrote.

Upon revising the wording, the official plan amendment now recognizes the property contains “a significant built heritage resource” and options for commemoration and preservation of the property include rehabilitation, adaptive reuse, partial preservation, commemoration, and/or demolition in whole or in part, listed in that order.

Though Ryan and his lawyers still took issue with the inclusion of “demolition” in the revised wording, the tribunal ultimately approved the entirety of the modified section, which also included renaming the Cooper Site’s official designation from “major institutional use focus area” to “Grand Trunk anchor district.”

“The tribunal finds that the city ought to have as wide a range of options available to it so as to enable the possible adaptive reuse of the Grand Trunk Building and subject lands … due to their prominent location within the downtown area of the city,” the tribunal decision reads. “The tribunal does not agree that demolition is the antithesis of conserved as set out in the definition in the (Provincial Policy Statement). … Sometimes demolition may be necessary to effect the adaptive reuse of a significant built heritage resource.”

Though Horne called the decision a dismissal of Ryan’s appeal, Ryan sees the city’s modified official plan amendment as having increased protections for the heritage value of the Cooper Site.

“(My) appeal … was not dismissed. (It) included a request to the tribunal to modify section 4.11. … The tribunal clarified that the inclusion of demolition was to give the city some flexibility in the future. This would have been of considerable concern had the tribunal not recognized the property’s national and possibly international heritage importance. So, it’s not a carte blanche provision for the city to simply demolish all of the structure. Context is critical here,” Ryan said.

“This finding ought to ensure the Cooper Site is on the city municipal heritage register … of the Ontario Heritage Act being finalized by council.”

Ryan has been involved in a series of legal battles with the City of Stratford revolving around compensation for his former property, which was expropriated by the city in 2009. Within the past few years, Stratford city council announced and moved ahead with its intention to develop a community hub on the property.